


And We Continue As We Do

by rocketgirl2



Category: Castle
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-22
Updated: 2010-07-22
Packaged: 2017-10-17 02:28:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocketgirl2/pseuds/rocketgirl2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castle has plans for Beckett on the Fourth of July. She's not so sure about them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And We Continue As We Do

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the wonderful [](http://alcetis.livejournal.com/profile)[**alcetis**](http://alcetis.livejournal.com/) for the Shakespearean (yes, friends, you heard me correctly) beta.  I oweth thee (Jen) a batcheth of iconseth.  Back on subject, the restaurant mentioned in this piece (Torino's) exists only in my special brand of Castle canon. 

“You have to come,” says Castle, sweeping grandly over to her desk with a refill of coffee.  He’s been more than helpful to her the whole day; hardly even indulged in his favorite annoying activities.  Beckett doesn’t trust it.

“I don’t see why I have to,” she responds, idly sipping at her coffee.  “Have you considered that I might already have plans?’

“You don’t,” says Castle in a way that could be called condescending, and Beckett mentally adds to the list of grievances against the man she’s been trying to compile since he asked her.  If worst comes to worst, she can use it as an excuse.

Beckett tries to glare him down, except it doesn’t work because he’s right, she doesn’t.  She hasn’t made Fourth of July plans with anyone for ages—but she sees no reason to start now.

“Maybe I don’t want to do anything.”

“Right.  Because the only thing you like to do is work.”

This time, the glare is somewhat more successful.  That had been uncalled for.

Castle gives her one of his best don’t-be-stupid looks (another grievance to be added to her list) and pulls his chair close to her. “Beckett. Kate.  I know you haven’t done anything summery this summer.  And I admire your dedication to your job, but you needto get out of the precinct before you go mad.”

Kate laughs at that one.  “Are you saying I’m going mad?”

“Not exactly,” says Castle.  “But I really don’t want you to—though I can see the headlines now: ‘Cop Gone Crazy Kills Her Two Partners; Chases After Accompanying Writer.’ Or maybe it wouldn’t be that—you could end up like that guy in the first case we saw.  ‘Former detective copies old case; series of books in a crazy crime spree.’  I like that story much better. But I’d really rather you didn’t, because then... ” he trails off, and Beckett is foolish enough to think he’s run out of things to say.  “Then I wouldn’t have a Nikki Heat anymore.”

Of course.  It would be something like that.  She chooses to ignore his last statement.  “That man didn’t commit the crime, Castle,” says Beckett.  “He was framed.”

Castle shrugs.  “Exactly.  Except for this time, you’d be the one doing the framing.”

It’s hard for Beckett not to smile.  “Then at least you’ll know where to look.”

“I’d rather not throw you in jail,” says Castle.  “Though, could I borrow your handcuffs sometime?”  At the look Beckett gives him, he discontinues the thought.  “At least consider my invitation?”  

Beckett doesn’t respond.

“Kate?”

Beckett sighs.  “Fine.  I’ll think about it.”

Castle doesn’t look convinced, but she can’t say she blames him; even to herself, she sounds insincere.  

“And by _think_ , I mean talk to Lanie,” Castle specifies.  Beckett ignores that one, because now he’s using her friends against her, and that’s just not _fair_.

Actually, what’s not fair  
is that he’s inviting her to do something fun, again, when he really shouldn’t be, because he knows that she’s still (somewhat) seeing Demming.  And though her thing with Demming is looking like it’s going to come to a spectacular end any day now, Castle doesn’t need to...encourage that to happen.  The worst thing is that Beckett can’t even confront him about it, because he’ll just deny it—he’s not asking her to go on a date, after all—and then he’ll ask her if she wants him to encourage it.  And that can’t go anywhere good.  At the same time, she really wants to go, which might make Castle think she’d like to spend more time with him.  And while maybe she’d like to do that, too, it’s not a good idea right now.  Kate Beckett is stuck.

Thankfully, Kate has a cure for all sorts of stuck she’s been in, one that involves Lanie and alcohol.  It hasn’t failed her yet.

  


+

  


“You call after work to ask me to join you for dinner,” says Lanie, after the waiter shows them to their booth at Torino’s.  “What’s up?”

Kate shrugs and fiddles self-consciously with her napkin as she sits down.  “It’s complicated?”

“Darling, that is you poorly dodging my questions.  Again.  If it wasn’t complicated, you wouldn’t have called me.”

Kate’s mouth quirks into a smile.  “True enough.”

An eyebrow raise accompanies Lanie’s, “So?”

“You already know what I’m going to say,” says Kate, settling back in her booth.  “It’s always the same conversation.”

“Maybe,” admits Lanie.  “So, what’d he do this time?”

Kate sighs.  “He wants me to spend the Fourth with him.  Well—not him.  The family.  Get out of the city for a bit for a picnic and fireworks and a bonfire.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“It feels wrong?” tries Kate.

Lanie sighs.  “Girl, if you have to ask me how it feels, I don’t know why you’re bothering with that line.  It’s not a date.  And the Fourth is two weekends away.  You never know—”

“Lanie,” cuts in Kate.  “Just—let’s not run that scenario again.  Just look at this one.”

“All right,” says Lanie, sounding disbelieving; Kate knows that Lanie thinks all these things are connected (and maybe she’s right), but Kate would prefer to think of them as isolated incidents.  It makes them easier for her to handle.

“So,” Lanie starts again.  “Dinner and fireworks and a bonfire.  With his family. That’s it?”

Kate thinks that that’s it is rather an understatement of the whole issue, but she’ll let that one go.  “Yes.”

“So tell me what’s wrong with that?”

So many things that Kate’s not sure how to put them all in words.  “It’s—Lanie, he knows I’m dating Tom.  He knows that I’m off-limits, but he won’t stop asking me to do stuff.”

“With his family,” specifies Lanie.  “If you think that’s a date, you still need work on your relationship skills.”

“It’s not that it’s a date,” says Kate.  “It’s actually worse.”

“Asking you to hang out with his family?  Girl, you like them!  I know you do!”

“Yeah,” admits Kate; there’s no dodging that one.  Alexis is a lovely girl, and Martha has been so kind to her.  “It’s that—it’s like he’s already accepting me as part of the family.”

“As a family friend.”

“No.”  Kate shakes her head.  “It’s more than that—like, look how well you belong here; this is what you could have.  Same tactics, different name.”

“Mmhmm,” says Lanie, and that’s when Kate knows she’s going to lose this argument.  “So you admit that you belong there?”

“I—what?  No.  I didn’t say that.  I said that’s what he was trying to show me—to convince me.”

Lanie smiles and accepts her cocktail from the waiter, pushing Kate’s towards her and waiting until the man has gone before continuing the conversation.  “Maybe that’s what your words said.  But it’s clear that you believe everything he’s ‘trying’ to show you.”

Kate shrugs.  “So I like his family.  So what?  It’s hard not to.”

“Liking them is one thing,” Lanie points out.  “Fitting in with them is another.”

“I don’t fit in,” insists Kate.  “They’re—well, they’re Castles.  All of them.  And though Alexis has more sense than her father, they have this—they treat everything so differently than I do.”

“But you enjoy it.”

“Yes, it’s fun,” says Kate.  “But it’s not how things are.  Sure, it’s good to feel safe and carefree and happy, but that’s not how life is.”

“Oh, honey,” says Lanie, giving Kate her best look of pity.  “Life doesn’t always have to be so methodical either, you know.  I think some more carefree and happy would do you good.”

“I have some of that,” says Kate.  “I feel perfectly happy when I’m with Tom.”

Lanie gives her a sad smile.  “Sure.  So happy that you worry about all the reasons you two aren’t working.  Listen, I’m not going to say anything more about that,” she says, as she sees Kate move to protest, “but I’m going to tell you that I’ve seen you around Castle and I’ve seen you around Tom, and I’ve seen how they’ve both changed you.  And maybe around Tom you get that stupid little smile on your face sometimes, but when you’re around Castle, it happens a lot more.  Like it or not, Castle’s already taught you to loosen up.  Maybe Tom’s done a bit of that for you too, or maybe he just came around at the right time to take advantage of it.  But I think you need to realize everything that Castle’s done.”

Kate would beg to differ, because she’s pretty sure that every time she realizes it, she comes this much closer to ending things with Demming.  Except, maybe that’s what Lanie’s been trying to tell her for the past month.  

“I know,” she says, because it’s really all she can say to that.  “I know.”

“Kate.”  Lanie reaches over the table and squeezes her hand for support.  “I know you don’t want to hear a lot of this, but I can’t let you ignore it.  I’ve seen it happening for the last two years and I didn’t say anything—”

Kate raises her eyebrows.

“Okay.  So I said a bit.”  

Kate raises her eyebrows further.  

“Fine, more than a bit.  But my point is, it’s gotten to the point where it’s more than just a game.  We’re reaching the point where people get hurt.  I don’t want one of them to be you.  Nor do I want one of them to be Castle.”

Kate’s mouth flattens.  “So you’re saying it has to be Tom.”

Lanie sighs.  “Unless he manages to magically get himself over you, that’s where it’s going to end.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then you’ll be hurting yourself.  And I already said I wouldn’t stand for that.”

The thing about being a detective is that Kate knows logic when she sees it, and it’s hard for her to ignore.

“Fine.  So Tom’s going to get hurt. Eventually.  But we still have fun together, and I don’t want to leave him and go off...chasing rainbows.”

Lanie chuckles softly.  “How poetic.  Look, I’m not saying you leave him now.  I’m saying you give Castle a chance.  Go spend the holiday with him.  It’s not like you and Tom have made plans.”

Kate shrugs.  “He asked me if I wanted to come to Iowa to meet his family.”

Lanie gapes at her.  “You neglected to tell me about that one.”

“He’s going to be gone a whole week.  I can’t miss that much work.” 

Lanie catches the way her eyes flicker downward.  “And you don’t want to get in that deep.”

Kate nods.  “It’s still too soon, you know?”  Or maybe it’s that it’s too far to go for him, or maybe it will always be too soon for her to take that sort of a step with him.  The reason really doesn’t matter as much as the end result.

“Then go with Castle,” says Lanie.  “You need something to do.  I’m sure Tom would want you to be having a good time.”

Kate nods, though she’s not sure Tom’s wanting her to have a good time would extend so far as her spending the day with Castle.  “Okay,” she says slowly.  “I think you’re right.”

“About which part?” asks Lanie jokingly; Kate knows it’s her way of offering to talk over all the undercurrents of the discussion, but there are some things she has to think through on her own first.

“Everything, as always,” she returns, in a convincing cheerfulness.  “I don’t suppose I could repay you by being right about something for a turn?”

“You can buy the drinks,” offers Lanie.  “Though, there is this guy…”

“Tell me more,” says Kate, leaning forward in interest.  This is how things are supposed to be. 

  


+

  


When she shows up to work the next day, she’s not surprised to see hot coffee on her desk and Castle sitting beside it, for once not in her chair or looking through any of her files.  She’s impressed before she reminds herself that she’s playing this one cool.

“You thought about it?” Castle asks, eagerly.

“Good morning, Castle,” says Kate, in her best icy-but-not tone.  “How are you today.”

“Good morning, Detective Beckett,” he replies.  “I’m fine, thank you, and yourself?”

“Not bad,” says Kate, sliding into her seat.

Castle nods politely.  “So, have you thought about it?”

“Maybe.”

“And?”

“What do I get out of it?”

Castle raises an eyebrow.  “Other than free food, lots of fun, and bragging rights for having helped build the biggest bonfire on this side of the state?”

It does sound quite good when he puts it like that.  “That’s it?”

Castle looks affronted.  “What do you mean, that’s it?  You are only saying that because you have not seen our bonfire, which only proves how much you need to go.”  He pauses, waits for a response.  Kate doesn’t give one.  “Well, what else do you want?”

“I don’t know,” Kate says, mock-thoughtful.  “Maybe for you to actually obey me for once?”

“I did!” said Castle, with all the pride of a five-year-old who’s just earned himself a gold star for not talking in the hallways (and Kate’s sure he’s serious about this by the way he didn’t take the other angle on her words, the one that slipped into her mind even though she swore she wouldn’t think those sorts of things).  “I didn’t even touch your files before you came.  Well, except to straighten them up.  You left them a bit…messy last night.” He waves his hand haphazardly in the direction of her desk.  
  
Kate ignores the last part, because she actually doesn’t mind finding her desk neater than she’d left it.  “Today is the first time in a long time that you’ve done anything like that,” she points out.  “And I’ve only been here for a few minutes.”

“Fine,” says Castle.  “I will obey you, completely, for a week if you agree to go.  But only if!  And you can’t back out.”

“So if I tell you to stay in the car?”

He looks at her, flabbergasted.  “You can’t ask me to do that!”

She shrugs.  “Deal’s off, then.”  

Not that she’s planning on asking him to stay in the car.  He’s actually quite helpful sometimes.

“Okay, okay, fine.  I’ll stay in the car.  But only for a week!  And you have to remember to tell me each time.”

Kate laughs.  “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Fine,” she says, trying to keep her voice light so it doesn’t betray the way her heart’s become a tiny bit hyperactive in the past minute or two.

“Fine?” he asks.  “Really?  You’ll come?”

“You’re acting like you were prepared for something worse,” says Kate with a smile.  “Is there something else I should be demanding from you.”

Castle scoots his chair close behind hers so he’s leaning over her shoulder and whispers in her ear, “You can demand anything of me you’d like.”

“Don’t do that,” she says.  He obliges.

“Really, though,” he says from a safe distance.  “You will go?”

“Yes,” she says.  “But if you keep bugging me about it...”

“Okay, okay.”  He does that thing where he pretends to zip his lips and throw away the key.  It’s sort of endearing—or it would be, were they still in junior high.  
  
“You know, I could really use a new computer,” says Kate conversationally, wondering how far she can push this one.  

“Nice try,” says Castle.  “But that wasn't part of the deal.”

“I suppose not,” says Kate in mock disappointment, but really, she can’t complain.  Consequences be damned, because she’s going to have fun this week, and as Lanie is fond of saying, whatever happens will happen.   


**Author's Note:**

> As always I appreciate concrit. :)


End file.
